Wooden plugs are often used to fill holes in a workpiece to conceal fasteners and screws that have been set below the surface of the workpiece. Typically, a wooden plug having a length greater than the depth of the cavity in which the fastener is seated is cut from a section of wood. The plug is then glued within the cavity and the section of the plug extending from the workpiece is trimmed and sanded, such that the plug is flush with the workpiece to conceal the fastener.
In the past, such wooden plugs have been cut using a plug cutter attachable to a drill press. Certain plug cutters include a plurality of cutting surfaces adapted to cut a shaped plug from wood. The plug cutter is pressed against a piece of wood and drilled to form the shaped plug. The plug is then removed from the piece of wood by chipping or cutting wood away from the base of the plug. Although such plug cutters are effective at cutting wooden plugs, they are not without their problems.
As a non-limiting example, existing plug cutters, when initially cutting wood to form a plug, may spin along the surface of the wood before the cutting prongs are set within the wood. This is also true if a tool operator uses a hand drill to drive the plug cutter. As a result, and regardless of whether a drill press or a hand drill is used to drive the plug cutter, existing plug cutters are potentially dangerous to the tool operator as the plug cutter may slide across the surface of the wood until and unless the plug cutter is set within the wood. Also, such sliding motion damages the surface of the wood, thereby resulting in waste wood product.
Thus, although existing plug cutters are effective at cutting wood plugs, there exists a need for improved plug cutters that assist in retaining the plug cutter in a localized area of the wood during initial cutting of the plug.